


Instant Messaging 5.5: The B.K. Paradox and the Wrong Number

by TheSaddleman



Series: Instant Messaging [15]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Humour, Romance, Scottish Accents, a wee bit of angst, inner thoughts, spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow S03E18 The Good The Bad and The Cuddly, spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow S04E03 Dancing Queen, spoilers for Victoria S01E03 Brocket Hall, spoilers for series 9, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16956414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: When the Doctor becomes annoyed at something he sees on his favourite TV show, he calls up Clara via psychic paper to vent. Later comes the age-old question: If a TARDIS materializes in a forest, does anybody care?





	Instant Messaging 5.5: The B.K. Paradox and the Wrong Number

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first new story in months, and a return to my Instant Messaging series. While the chronology of this series is all over the place, this is meant to be set quite late - both in terms of Instant Messaging and Series 9. Exactly where will become evident.
> 
> Please note that this story does contain two spoilers from DC's Legends of Tomorrow - a major one from the Season 3 finale, and a plot spoiler from the Season 4 episode "Dancing Queen".

Clara Oswald was content. The last exam had been marked. A terrific takeaway meal had been consumed. And she’d even managed to sneak binging a few episodes of the American version of _The Office_ into the mix. OK, more than a few. OK, close to half the fourth series. Which was why it was verging on one-thirty in the morning by the time finally she crawled into bed, still giggling.

Sure, she was going to be dead-tired when her alarm went off less than six hours later, heralding the start of yet another Tuesday. But she’d managed a school day on less sleep before. Or no sleep at all.

There was only one thing missing to make her evening perfect. But, sadly, he was still two work days and probably a zillion light-years away. On the plus side, that gave her a reason to look forward to Wednesday. And, on that note, she gave the fingertips of her right hand a light kiss and then reached over to her end table to gently tap the front of a framed photograph of an intense-faced grey-haired man with expressive eyebrows and a slight smile, the protective glass covered with fingerprints from the ritual she had recently started.

Clara shut the light off and let the down-filled pillow ferry her off to …

…full wakefulness as the small leather wallet lying on the bed beside her began to vibrate like a mobile set on silent.

Now, with a lead-up like that, you would expect, at the very least, annoyance from the petite, dark-haired-schoolteacher-by-day/time-traveller-on-Wednesdays. Not so with Clara Oswald, who simply smiled a dreamy smile, flipped the wallet open, and read the words that appeared on the psychic paper; instant messaging from across time and space.

        **Utter trollop!**  
        **Clara! You there?**  
        **It’s utter trollop!**

Clara’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Then she concentrated, and, a moment later, words directed from her own mind replaced the previous message. And she knew that, at that moment (relatively speaking), their recipient was seeing them appear on his own psychic paper. Maybe he might even be smiling for once.

_Doctor, do you kiss the TARDIS with that mouth?_

        **Oh, hi Clara!**  
        **No, I mean it’s nonsense.**  
        **Balderdash.**  
        **Hogwash.**  
        **Bullshi-**

_I get the picture._  
_So what’s utter trollop?_  
_You finally try making a soufflé?_  
_Do you need me to walk you through the recipe again?_  
_If so, I’ll go grab my hazmat suit._  
_Or is there another reason you woke me up at 1:30 a.m.?_

        **What day is it?**  
        **Oh no, I didn’t miss our thing, did I?**

_Relax, it’s only Tuesday._  
_Very EARLY Tuesday._  
_Very VERY early Tuesday._

        **Sorry.**

_(No, you’re not.)_  
_Our heroine thinks with implied parentheses._

        **I was just watching the latest episode of _Legends of Tomorrow_.**  
        **You saw it, right?**

_What, the show starring that guy who looks like Rory Williams?_

        **That’s the one.**

_Fun show. But what year are you calling from?_

        **Uh, I think ... 2018?**  
        **The Rory-like left in the third ser-.**

 _Hold that thought, mister, I’m still in 2017._  
_No spoilers!_  
_Still mad at you for spoiling the ending of_ Game of Thrones.

        **I keep offering to upgrade your telly.**  
        **so you can stream from the future.**

_Doctor, remember my toaster?_  
_My expensive toaster?_  
_My expensive toaster that’s now locked up in the Black Archive_  
_instead of, you know, making my toast?_

        **I said I was sorry about that.**  
        **Made lousy toast anyway.**  
        **Thought it could use some personality.**

_Doctor, it tried to take over London!_  
_The army had to be called in!_  
_Trafalgar still smells like burnt scone._

        **Clara, honestly, who _hasn’t_ tried to take over London?**

 _My point is, I don’t want my telly starting an international incident._  
_So what about_ Legends of Today _?_

        **_Tomorrow_.**  
        **What do you mean, what about?**

_I don’t know, you called me!_

        **Ball-kick paradox.**

_Sounds more painful than the Bootstrap Paradox._

        **There’s a guy in the show**  
        **who goes back in time**  
        **and has a beef with his da.**  
        **So he decides to boot the bampot in the baws**  
        **so he doesn’t get born.**

_Your Scottish is showing, Doctor._

        **What?**  
        **Clara, I AM Scottish, remember?**  
        **“Cop yer whack for this” and all that?**

_I’ve never heard you say that, ever._

        **I could say it if I wanted to.**

_Och, laddie, yer bum’s out the windae._

        **You always say the nicest things to me, Clara.**

_My grandad used to say that._  
_Anyway, what about the ball-thing-paradox?_

        **It doesn’t work.**  
        **Can’t do it.**  
        **A big starter for nothin’.**

 _I take it you’ve tried?_  
_Did you miss and end up kicking the wall instead?_  
_Saw that happen to a student._  
_Foot went right through the plaster_  
_and he got stuck._  
_Not pretty._  
_But hilarious._

        **Not me.**  
        **But Missy tried.**  
        **Back when she was the Master.**  
        **Tracked down his father on Gallifrey.**

_What happened?_

        **They ended up getting drunk.**  
        **Stole a TARDIS.**  
        **Started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.**  
        **Nothing major.**

_So everything proceeded as normal, then?_

        **It backfired. The Master found out**  
        **that the head of the Celestial Intervention Agency**  
        **was his mum. And his parents met because**  
        **Daddy was arrested due to their little adventure.**

_Karma is universal._  
_Same thing happen on the show?_

        **Constantine tried to put the boot in, like I said,**  
        **but he got teleported across the room.**  
        **He should have known better.**  
        **Of course that wouldn’t work.**  
        **If it did, I’d have done it to myself ages ago.**

_What, kick your dad in the-_

        **No, I just said, _to_ myself!**

_Ouch! Why?_

        **Have you met me?**  
        **Some of the things I’ve done.**  
        **How I’ve treated some people.**  
        **I deserved a kick up the backside.**  
        **Or somewhere more painful.**

_You keep saying time can be rewritten._

        **I used to believe that.**

_What changed?_

        **Remember when you got trapped in that underwater base?**  
        **I tried to rewrite time to save you.**  
        **Didn’t work.**

_But you saved me anyway, right?_  
_Even got a 140-year nap in the bargain._  
_Did wonders for your complexion._  
_Too bad about the leg cramp, though._

        **Clara, for me, a 140-year nap is not fun.**  
        **And not because of the leg cramp.**  
        **There’s a reason I don’t sleep very much.**  
        **But I was lucky.**  
        **Next time I might not be.**  
        **Every time I put you in danger**  
        **I feel like I should go back in time,**  
        **punch myself out,**  
        **and stop whatever I was planning.**

Clara sat bold upright in her bed and rolled her eyes. Not this again. 

_You’re getting paranoid about me again._  
_Stop it. Just stop._  
_How many times must I tell you,_  
_I can take care of myself._

        **I have a duty of care.**

_I’m not your bloody student!_

Clara gasped. That came out _far_ more strongly than she intended.

There was no immediate reply, which started to worry her. She didn’t regret throwing that back at the Doctor, but at the same time … she didn’t want a repeat of what happened after the moon-egg incident.

Finally:

        **I never thought you were.**  
        **I just … I’ve seen it bad things too many times to people I care for.**

_I know. But you can’t protect me from everything._  
_I know the risks._  
_I could have said no when you asked me to come back that Christmas._  
_But I said yes._

        **As I recall it was more a beg than an ask.**  
        **Why did you say yes?**  
        **Not that I minded.**  
        **It was the happiest day of my regeneration when you did.**

_Awww…_  
_I came back because I missed you._  
_And because Danny…_  
_or my subconscious…_  
_told me I had to move on._  
_I wanted to move on with you._  
_The adventure is just a bonus._

        **We don’t have to travel, you know.**  
        **We can stay in one place.**  
        **Be safe.**

_Be bored, you mean._  
_This is your life._  
_Helping people._  
_Saving planets._  
_And it’s my life too, now._  
_Besides, I couldn’t see us retiring to a country estate_  
_tending orchids and rooks._

        **I’m no Lord Melbourne.**  
        **But Victoria would have been quite happy.**

_I don’t think so._  
_There was too much of me in her._  
_But I’d choose you over Lord M any day._

        **What does that mean?**

 _Means what it says._  
_So ... you want to go back in time_  
_to when that episode of_ Legends of Tomorrow _was written_  
_and deliver a literal bollocking to someone?_

        **Nah, it’s a good show.**  
        **Just wanted an excuse to call you.**  
        **I tried messaging you earlier,**  
        **But I got the year wrong.**  
        **Rang you in 2018, and you didn’t pick up.**  
        **Which worried me.**

_Maybe you didn’t pay the mobile bill._  
_Or I was in the shower._  
_I wouldn’t worry._  
_And you never need an excuse._  
_Just say the word and I’m all yours._

        **Pardon?**

_That came out naughtier than I meant._  
_…_

        **Clara?**

_No, it didn’t._

        **Uh…**

_What, the great Doctor at a loss for words?_

        **Uh…**

_We can talk about it later._  
_Over cocktails at Club El Morocco, 1948?_

        **Uh…sure**

_So, see you Wednesday, then?_

        **Yes, boss.**

_Goodnight, Doctor._

***

Clara closed the wallet and lay back on her bed, smiling. She loved getting a rise out of the Doctor at the best of times. The accidental times were the best. 

She finally fell asleep with the image of slow dancing with the Doctor at the El Morocco crossing her mind.

***

Roughly a zillion light-years away and about a year in the future from Clara's slumber, the Doctor closed his own psychic paper wallet and stared at it.

“Uh,” he repeated aloud, to himself this time. “Sure. She’ll probably want to go dancing, too. Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen. They’re lightweights compared to the real terror of the universe; a dance floor.”

The fear of dancing aside, he was already looking forward to seeing Clara again. He was never sure what to make of the tiny human who invaded his thoughts so frequently these days. She was impulsive, infuriating, always had him worried for one reason or another. Yet all she had do was smile, flash those impossibly large eyes at him, wrap her arms around him in a hug, and everything melted away.

The worry about not being able to reach her in 2018 was still in the back of his mind—though, to be fair, it would have been awkward if he had contacted her then anyway, especially if she was no longer travelling with him, if she was with somebody else. Maybe even with another Doctor. 

The emptiness that filled his hearts at that thought—as well as a distinct sense of jealousy of a type he hadn’t felt since the days when Danny was sweeping Clara off her feet—made the Doctor take a deep breath.

No, it couldn’t be that. She just forgot her psychic paper at home. Or she was in the shower, like she said. Or in class. Or maybe they were on an adventure together and didn’t need it. In fact, maybe they weren’t even using the psychic paper anymore.

After all, there had been a few moments in recent adventures where he and Clara had come up with the same idea at the same time—and nothing mundane like deciding what restaurant to go to, either. This was more along the lines of, “Let’s come up with an obscure and insane plan to break out of an alien prison,” and the odds of a 2,000-plus-year-old Time Lord from Gallifrey and a twenty-something schoolteacher from Blackpool coming up with the exact same idea at the exact same moment involving technology that wouldn’t be invented on earth for another three millennia, were pretty low. Yet it had happened. Twice.

So that was it. Maybe by 2018 they’d be sharing a mental link. They wouldn’t need psychic paper if that was the case. Sure, Clara was human, but she was also the Impossible Girl. He seriously wouldn’t put it past her. 

The Doctor smiled in comfort at that. And then, after taking a moment to remember where he’d stowed his tux, he flipped a few switches on the TARDIS console to send the ship hurtling to Earth on a certain Wednesday afternoon in 2017. 

After all, he didn’t want to keep Clara waiting.

***

**2018**

The immortal woman stared at the leather wallet in her hand as it vibrated for the third time. If she’d still been capable of drawing breath, she would have taken a very deep one. She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree at the edge of a remote forest in northern British Columbia, not far from a clearing where an incongruous-looking petrol station and café sat—the incongruous part being its location about a hundred kilometres from the nearest road, or human settlement.

“I told you coming back to 2018 was a mistake,” said a second female immortal as she approached the first. “Why are you getting messages from him now? And why are you still holding on to that relic? I thought you wanted no reminders of the Doctor. Something you said about it hurting too much?”

“I don’t know. I … when we used to communicate this way, it felt … like we were joined in some way. It felt ... intimate. I can’t explain it. But I remember this actual message. The Doctor told me he’d tried to contact me, but got the wrong year; he rang up 2018 instead of 2017. Said I never answered. It made him worried about me, again, but I told him it was probably nothing.”

“So...” said Ashildr.

Clara frowned, “It wasn’t nothing after all. I didn’t answer because I … died.”

Ashildr put her arm around Clara’s shoulder. “Clara, remember, we agreed not to use the D-word.”

Clara smiled back. “Sorry. I keep forgetting to forget.”

“So, why can’t you answer now?”

Clara let a flash of anger spark across her face. “Is this another test? You know full well I can’t. I know the chain of events after this. The Doctor will figure out he got the year wrong and try again. We’ll have a chat about … stuff … and then he’ll try to take me to a classic nightclub in Manhattan in 1948, but, as usual, he’ll get his sums wrong and take me someone else instead. A space station orbiting near Neptune, in fact. Not long after that was Trap Street. And then, you know...” She shrugged and her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry, Clara.”

“Don’t be. You’re right, Ashildr, I shouldn’t keep this. It’s senseless. It won’t bring him back and it won’t magically bring me back to life, either. I’m going to get rid of it, now. Bury it like the rest of my past.”

Ashildr gave a sad smile. “It’s the only way I’ve been able to move on through so many lifetimes. I even had to abandon my diaries eventually. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, or what you felt for each other wasn’t real. But forgetting you was the only way he could move on. Applies both ways.”

“You’re right, you’re always so right,” said Clara, intentionally quoting some of the last words the Doctor said to her before the two of them pressed that awful button. “You go back to the TARDIS. I’ll get rid of this. This is as good a place as any to make it disappear.”

Ashildr nodded and departed.

Clara looked down at the wallet and started idly digging a small hole in the ground with the point of her shoe. As she did so, she closed her eyes, just for a moment.

Long enough for a series of intense thoughts to overflow her mind:

_I love you._  
_Why didn’t I tell you_  
_when I had the chance?_  
_I’ll tell you why._  
_I made a promise._  
_I told Danny I would never say it again._  
_I kept my promise._  
_But I wish I’d told you._  
_Now it’s too late._

“Oh, my stars!” Clara said aloud as she opened her eyes and saw the last part of her thought appear on the psychic paper and vanish. She hadn’t intended to transmit anything. In fact, being technically dead, she wasn’t sure she actually _could_. 

OK, she thought, it was just a random transmission. The odds of the Doctor seeing it were nil. And he never mentioned it to her earlier, so it probably went nowhere, to no one. She was dead. There was no mental “simpatico” possible between someone who was dead and someone who was alive. It was just a fluke that she received his message. A wrong number through time and space. It probably happened all the time. Hell, she once had a nice conversation with Rose Tyler that way, right?

Clara knelt and quickly finished carving the small hole in the earth. She hurriedly placed the wallet inside and kicked the dirt over until it had vanished. By the time she’d finished, tears—in a cruel twist of fate, crying was something she was still good at, despite being undead—were streaming down her face.

She raced back to the TARDIS, shaking her head, trying to clear away the memory. To move on.

***

For the next few hours, the sun continued to shine down on the spot where Clara’s psychic paper was buried. A bird landed on the small mound to pick at some displaced twigs it felt would make good stuffing for its nest. A black bear sauntered by and relieved itself next to a nearby tree. A brief sun shower dampened the ground.

As the old philosophical question—or, the old Bruce Cockburn song, take your pick—goes, if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? The same could apply to the trumpeting, groaning sound of a TARDIS rematerializing in the same spot where it had sat only a few hours earlier.

And it could apply to the sound of running as Clara Oswald emerged from the clearing.

Although as far as the trees and other denizens of the area were concerned, only a few hours had passed—indeed, the sun was only just starting to cast late-afternoon shadows—for the young woman who arrived at the log, it had been far, far longer. On the order of decades. Not that one could tell from looking at her. Other than a change of clothes and the fact her hair hung loose now, rather than being wrapped in a pony tail as it had been earlier, she looked identical to how she was when she’d last sat on the fallen tree’s trunk.

“Where did I leave you?” she said. It didn’t take her long to locate the spot where the psychic paper had been buried. Digging her hands into the dirt, she quickly retrieved it and held it like buried treasure. She opened the wallet. The paper inside started spouting out messages, rapid-fire, almost like it was expelling a backlog of data.

        **I…miss…**  
        **I…miss…her**  
        **I…who?**  
        **Who do I miss?**  
        **I…miss…Cla…Cla…Cla**

The partial word “Cla” filled the rest of the paper, almost like the messaging had glitched.

Clara had seen this before, on those occasions where the psychic paper had accidentally transmitted inner thoughts and feelings. Was this just his psychic paper picking up his own thoughts? Did he even know he was broadcasting?

Ultimately, she didn’t care. Nor was she surprised at what she saw, because she had begun sensing these intense thoughts on her own. They had been troubling her for weeks, until, against Ashildr's better judgement, Clara had decided to return to where she had abandoned her psychic paper so many years before.

The Doctor is trying to remember me, Clara Oswald thought. I was right to come back. He needs me, and I am going to see him again. Rules be damned.

**_Continued in[Instant Messaging VI: Two Dances](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8630719)_ **

**Author's Note:**

> The DC's Legends of Tomorrow episode I describe, and which inspired me to write this story, was "Dancing Queen". Coincidentally, the episode guest-starred Sarah Jane Adventures veteran Anjli Mohindra. The plot reference refers to John Constantine trying to prevent his own birth by, ah, "injuring" his father in a bar fight. It doesn't work and Zari Tomaz refers to this as the Ball-Kick Paradox. 
> 
> Based upon on-screen dates given in various episodes (specifically In the Forest of the Night, which is dated on screen as taking place in 2016), I have long been of the opinion that the earliest the events of Face the Raven occurred were in 2017 if not later assuming Last Christmas takes place at Christmas 2016. (I am aware the spin-off series Class gives Clara's year of death as 2015, but I consider this to be a continuity error based on the information presented in Series 8 and factoring in things such as Clara's age as given in Series 7 and 8).
> 
> As those who follow my stories know, I consider Queen Victoria to have been an echo of Clara's, so the Lord M reference (specifically the events of the Victoria Series 1 episode "Brocket Hall") stem from this. 
> 
> The backstory element regarding The Master was made up by me for this story and might not match any novels or audios that might touch on his parentage. The Celestial Intervention Agency (CIA) is an organization introduced during the Classic Era.
> 
> This story wasn't intended to dovetail into Instant Messaging VI: Two Dances (which I uploaded just over two years ago), but it ended up pushing in that direction. With two years between the chapters, I can't promise that the continuity is air-tight (but that may be fixed if I ever get around to revising these stories).


End file.
